Several weeks ago we began to study about Hungering for God and saw this longing after Jesus with a heart of love and devotion is called Biblical Fasting. And Biblical Fasting, or the voluntary abstinence from good and right things such as food, is a spiritual discipline, which has fallen upon hard times in modern Christianity. So today I repeat our task:
In the Old Testament, we can see that Biblical Fasting was an urgent call to get serious about Knowing God.
In the New Testament we see Biblical Fasting was an ancient spiritual discipline to reschedule my life with God at the center instead of dining, relaxing, amusing, accumulating, advancing, securing, and a multitude of other things that are not wrong – just deadly to intimacy with the Almighty.
In the Early Church of Acts and the Epistles, we see demonstrated that this Hunger for God shaped their lives, their ministry, their worship, and their outreach.
In the Early Church, we see Biblical fasting is a powerful way to yield every part of my life to God’s supremacy.
Conclusion: Biblical Fasting is an immediate way to declare your allegiance to God’s way and glory in every day of your life!
Listen to this brief glimpse from Early Church History as we jump into our study this morning of God’s Word’s New Testament portrait of the Early Church’s Hunger for God.
EARLY BELIEVERS FOCUSED ON ETERNAL MINISTRY
About A.D. 133 Aristides, a teacher of philosophy in the Roman Province of Asia (modern Turkey), presented a defense of Christianity to Emperor Hadrian (AD 117-138). From it, we get a glimpse of what the early Christians were like and why the church grew the way it did—like wildfire—in those centuries.
Now the Christians, O King…have the commandments of the Lord Jesus Christ himself engraved on their hearts, and they observe, looking for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. They do not covet men’s goods; and love their neighbors; they despise not the widow and grieve not the orphan. He that hath distributeth liberally to him that hath not. If they see a stranger, they bring him under their roof and rejoice over him, as if it were their own brother; for they call themselves brethren, not after the flesh, but after the spirit and in God…. And if there is among them a man that is poor and needy, and they have not an abundance of necessities, they fast two or three days that they may supply the needy with their necessary food. For Christ’s sake, they are ready to lay down their lives. So it was spread abroad, “Behold how they love one another.” What shall we be known for? Let it be that we are willing to die for Christ and, even more, that we are willing to live for him in loving his people—and his enemies. The early Christians fasted so that they would have more to give to the needy, which means they did not have a lot stored up. O Lord, help us see Christ, be satisfied with Christ, and to show Christ as they did.
(HFG-03; 150426AM)
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